Lizzo dialed into her unfiltered self for “My Face Hurts From Smiling,” letting her lyrics spill straight from the source.
Lizzo cut loose on her third mixtape, My Face Hurts From Smiling, by ditching pop polish and refusing to revise her lyrics, thereby pushing her Hip-Hop persona to the forefront.
In a Billboard interview, Lizzo explained she normally reshapes her lyrics when crafting pop tracks, but this project was a different story.
“That’s how I start with everything, it’s like a freestyle and it’s typically kind of rappity, and then I add melody, and then I go in and adjust the lyrics and then be like, can you say this in pop music?” she said.
For My Face Hurts From Smiling, which dropped last month, she made a conscious decision to let her lyrics lead without a filter.
“I think that was the biggest thing, like with this project, I’m like, the first thing that comes out my mouth Imma say it. I’m not gonna edit myself,” she added.
The mixtape, which highlights Lizzo’s rap roots more directly than her previous LPs, also features a guest appearance from SZA on the song “IRL.”
The duo’s connection goes deeper than the music.
“There’s a lot of like genuine support and she’s one of the only people I can text at three in the morning when I’m crashing out,” said Lizzo. “I really appreciate her ’cause she understands, and I think it’s really hard for you to have someone in your life who’s known you for a long time and also understands the world you’re in.”
The project comes on the heels of Lizzo wrapping her fifth studio album Love in Real Life, which she confirmed she finished earlier this year.
Although she has already released the singles “Love in Real Life” and “Still Bad,” there’s no confirmed release date for the whole album.
The mixtape My Face Hurts From Smiling was released in April.
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